The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Newcomers → In car radio
My team would like to have our drivers be able to communicate to the pits and vice versa. What is the cheapest radio you know of, or suggestions on how to make our own that you know of? Thanks for any and all help!
My team would like to have our drivers be able to communicate to the pits and vice versa. What is the cheapest radio you know of, or suggestions on how to make our own that you know of? Thanks for any and all help!
We have been looking for the same but in reality there is no cheap solution... at least none that we could find. Inside the car is just too loud for talkabouts and other small radios.
Do a search for a post by me on something called the "Boost-a-roo". It solved our volume problems and our car is loud as hell.
We found motorcycle helmet microphones from Radio Shack that fit the family radios a few years ago that we used for karting. They worked pretty well. Now if I could just remember what I did with them....
There was a long discussion about them in the Lemons tech topic-- as mentioned a search for boost-a-roo will find it or just search for radios. GMRS radios with helmet kits work well enough for slow parts of the track or yellow-flag sessions, but more volume is needed for green-flag racing.
Text messaging!
Smoke Signals!
-=Tom
Judge Phil wrote:Text messaging!
Smoke Signals!
-=Tom
We are fielding a Fiero. My team will most definitely be receiving smoke signals at some point during the weekend!
This thread from twowayradioforum.com has a few suggestions on radios. You'll see my post specifically describes Lemons races and the main admin gives a pretty detailed response to all my questions.
We've tried using some Motorola TalkAbouts in the past and never were able to get it to work very well. I think the problem is two fold: First, some tracks have line of sight issues which cause reception issues. And second, a good headset that is loud enough for the driver to hear, and has a good enough mic for the driver to transmit is hard to find on a budget.
I have plans to solve this problem for our team though. We have several electrical engineers related to drivers and I'm convinced we can hack something together in the spirit of Lemons that meets all the requirements. I will certainly post my findings and results, but that probably won't be until closer to the New Orleans race in Nov.
Most use the Midland GXT1000VP4 GMRS Radio ($59) with Helmet Headsets w/ Push-To-Talk ($30). These radios are true 5.0 watts (most allowed by law). Most other GMRS radios are 2.5watts or less (FRS is 0.5watts). If the helmet earpieces are placed perfectly over the ears, the volume and clarity is ok. If not, it can be hard if not impossible to hear.
At Summit Point, we could hear each other almost all the way around the track.
-Scott
Most use the Midland GXT1000VP4 GMRS Radio ($59) with Helmet Headsets w/ Push-To-Talk ($30). These radios are true 5.0 watts (most allowed by law). Most other GMRS radios are 2.5watts or less (FRS is 0.5watts). If the helmet earpieces are placed perfectly over the ears, the volume and clarity is ok. If not, it can be hard if not impossible to hear.
At Summit Point, we could hear each other almost all the way around the track.-Scott
Again, if you use the Boost-a-roo the GMRS volume level is increased FOUR TIMES over stock. Even with our 2.0L at full sond we can hear just fine.
Here is a very cheap amplifier for anything with an external-speaker or headphone jack (e.g., CB radio, some GMRS walkie-talkies). Add a couple of crappy door speakers and the dual-RCA-to-your-radio cable (also will be cheap on eBay) and your driver will hear all your incoherent radio rantings, regardless of helmet, engine noise, etc. In fact, the drivers of the cars near yours will also hear it.
psh, screw door speakers, get some of those PA speakers pointed right at the back of the driver's head!
Read-only we had good results with a regular old handheld Midland radio. Our car was, however, hella quieter than a lot of the junk on the track. I was loving it because we happened to be on the same radio channel as some team that saw fit to do full-track spotting AND had a sense of humor. Actually talking back was more problematic - we had the 'security' style headsets, which works excellent for hearing, but the PTT button is totally not designed for gloved hands (plus it's on the same piece as the goddamned microphone, which prettymuch means your PTT button has to be INSIDE your helmet. They also operate in a voice activated mode. We didn't try it because we figured breathing on it would set it off and clog the channel.
If your radio strategy is such that your driver only needs to call the pits when they're in SERIOUS SHIT (i.e. waiting for a tow or parked in the penalty box) then you can probably get away with the security guard headset or even just a handheld.
...or even just a handheld.
Except that we are prohibited from using a handheld:
5.3: Pit Communication: Every team must have a reliable way to signal its driver on track. A pit board (homemade is fine) is acceptable, as is a helmet-wired radio system. No loose or hand-held receivers are allowed in the car.
I'm continually amazed that someone somewhere hasn't developed a more budget-priced version of all this radio kit. We know that the mostly-reliable and less-interference prone Midlands can be had for like $60 for two radios, but then you add in the PTT's and headsets with in-helmet booms and somewhere along the way the costs just seem to mushroom.
FWIW, we use Motorola UHF radios that I scrounge at swap meets and on eBay, mostly because I got sick/tired of dealing with the restrictions and interference that seem to be endemic to FRS/GMRS radios when there are 120 teams trying to use the radio at the same time.
Like Pat, we use UHF Motorolas with mixed results.
We have used them with the $30 motorcycle wiring kits and it was hit and miss.
I send the radios in to get checked and repaired and we need batteries.
For our most recent race, we used a Nascar style car harness and installed an external antenna. I took some of the cheap motorcycle kits and made helmets kits out of some of them to work with the Nascar harness for guys without the $100+ helmet wiring.
We run a battery eliminator in the car.
All this worked well on Saturday at Eagles Canyon. Sunday, the car could not transmit in the morning. By the end of the day Sunday we had no radio communication with the car.
One team member asked me if I ever watched Nascar. It's very rare. He pointed out they loose the car all the time! Point is radios are great but they aren't perfect.
Personally, I want to install a fixed radio in the car but that's more money and time to get it to work.
When I drove for Mulry at Dallas I didn't have any radio stuff in my helmet, so he just used a pit board to contact me. It works fine so long as your only message is "Pit" and you keep a spotter on the track in case the driver pits unexpectedly. Of course you'll want to upgrade at some point, but for my team's first race we'll be using a pit board to communicate with the driver and the spotter and paddock will keep in touch with the two radios we have.
When I drove for Mulry at Dallas I didn't have any radio stuff in my helmet, so he just used a pit board to contact me. It works fine so long as your only message is "Pit" and you keep a spotter on the track in case the driver pits unexpectedly. Of course you'll want to upgrade at some point, but for my team's first race we'll be using a pit board to communicate with the driver and the spotter and paddock will keep in touch with the two radios we have.
We tried radios and ended up sending someone to get a dry erase board mid race, since they didnt work for shit. We have kicked around the idea of having a hand held in the car, just in case we brake or have to visit the penalty box.
I drove with Zoom-Zoom-Boom in May and their radio worked great. I don't know what type, but we used ear buds and IMSA-style mic connectors mounted on the helmet. I'm using Midland GSR's now, but the in-car volume is low. I was building my own amp but may try one of those boost-a-roos instead.
sbarton wrote:Most use the Midland GXT1000VP4 GMRS Radio ($59) with Helmet Headsets w/ Push-To-Talk ($30). These radios are true 5.0 watts (most allowed by law). Most other GMRS radios are 2.5watts or less (FRS is 0.5watts). If the helmet earpieces are placed perfectly over the ears, the volume and clarity is ok. If not, it can be hard if not impossible to hear.
At Summit Point, we could hear each other almost all the way around the track.-Scott
Again, if you use the Boost-a-roo the GMRS volume level is increased FOUR TIMES over stock. Even with our 2.0L at full sond we can hear just fine.
I picked up a couple of the Midland radios recently on CL and then tested them (in High power mode 5Watts) while Mtn bike riding in the Sierra Nevada mountains near south shore lake Tahoe (I just thought you all would like to know where I was). Anyway, they seemed to give really good range even through heavy forest and over, around, down the mountain, a couple miles. They should work great for the racetrack Lemons runs on (relatively small and open, not like Road America or WG).
I got the helmet headsets as part of the deal, but plan modifiy/replace those with a custom set of wiring. The Lemons car already has a momentary switch installed for the Push-To-Talk (PTT), I'll run some long wires from that to the radio and then some long wires from the radio to a 4 wire jack behind the drivers sea (it will disconnect somewhat naturally if you are exiting the car fast). Lots of wire, but you can put things where you want. Since i'll be splicing i can splice in a good set of ear phones.
Just get your soldeirng iron and exacto knife out and you can do this too.
went looking for something else, but I found this on the Instructables web site. It shows how to modify a Radio Shack "spy" audio amplifier to use to boost head phone volume. this should be very cheap and maybe you can find something similar really cheap at a rummage sale or online.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Simple- … -supplies/
We tried the Motorola talkabout route the first race... Didn't work at all for us.
We decided to invest some money in it, and bought Motorolla UHF radios for the car, and then a PTT system with an ear jack. It wasn't cheap, but it worked really well.
However, we usually use it to tell funny stories to keep the driver occupied during yellows. Probably should have just stuck to pit signs.
WE use Motocomm http://www.motocomm.com/ headsets with motorolla UHF radios. Not cheap...but again it worked well. PAy some extra money for better radios, you will appreciate it in the end.
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Newcomers → In car radio